THE PM’s big EU speech in Reykjavik today must have seemed a frightfully clever idea when his special advisors first suggested it.

He could fly to Iceland – a non-EU country – and use the Northern Future Forum’s pan-Scandinavian get-together to warn about the dangers of Britain quitting the EU and emulate Norway – another non-EU country.

The PM’s not wrong about Norway’s relationship with the EU: she has got a duff deal from Brussels. For the privilege of trading with the EU, Norway has to comply with EU regulations over which she has no say. Between 2000 and 2009, Norway had to adopt 9.1 per cent of all EU legislation, over which she had no say.

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Who is saying we should leave the EU and be like Norway? It's not the choice in front of us - and the PM knows it

Norway's deal with the EU is terrible. Almost as bad as ours in fact. We had to adopt 100 percent of EU legislation over which we have little say.

And like Norway we cannot properly control our borders either.

But who is saying we should leave the EU and be like Norway? It's not the choice in front of us - and the PM knows it. He's scaremongering.

What is significant about the PM’s new tactic is what it tells us about the failure of his so called renegotiation.

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David Cameron is against a Norway style relationship for the UK with the EU

Mr Cameron once promised us their referendum would be a choice between leaving or a new deal. Yet there is no significant new deal.

Today marks the moment when he stops trying to sell EU membership on the promise of better terms, and starts trying to frighten us to stay put with the way things are. He is defending EU membership on current terms not any new deal. Hope of better no longer animates the In side. It's all about fear.

Instead of using his visit to Reykjavik to lecture is on the perils of independent self government, the PM ought to ask his Icelandic hosts how they are able to trade freely with the entire world.

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There is no significant new EU deal on the cards for the UK, says Mr Carswell

Last week, the PM met the Chinese President, he didn’t have the power to negotiate a free trade agreement with China. We have ceded that sovereign prerogative to the EU. But Iceland – whose population is the same size as Croydon – has had a free trade deal with China for two years.

Iceland’s trade agreements give the lie to the notion that trade happens to your advantage only if part of a big trade bloc. Trade actually happens when it suits an individual buyer and an individual seller.

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Ukip MP Douglas Carswell

That’s how the people of Iceland can trade on equal terms with the people of China. If they can do it, why can’t we?

Iceland has a pretty good immigration system too. When Icelandic businesses find they lack the necessary skills or the labour to meet the demand for what they produce, they can access the migrant workers they need through a functional, sensible visa system.

It suits the Icelanders, and it suits the migrants. Why can’t we have that too?